Namibia: As Football Fever Spreads, Let's Stop the Spread of HIV
The campaign aims to mobilize the football community to "give AIDS the red card" and eliminate mother-to-child HIV transmission between now and 2014,
Michel Sidibé
6 July 2010
As Africa cheers for Ghana in the 2010 Fifa World Cup quarter-finals and as football fans from around the world visit South Africa to cheer on their favourite teams, we must not lose sight of one unwelcome guest - HIV.
Why should we talk about HIV during the World Cup?
Two reasons. First, a celebrated sporting event such as the World Cup can encourage the spread of HIV through the combination of alcohol and unsafe sex. Second, almost 80 babies are born with HIV during the 90 minutes it takes to play a football match. This translates into 430 000 babies infected each year.
Because we have the means to stop this tragedy, we must act - today.
Football stars and UNAIDS Goodwill Ambassadors Emmanuel Adebayor of Togo and Michael Ballack of Germany have joined forces with UNAIDS to launch a global campaign to prevent babies from becoming infected with HIV.
The campaign aims to mobilize the football community to "give AIDS the red card" and eliminate mother-to-child HIV transmission between now and 2014, when the next World Cup is played in Brazil. To date, football captains from a range of countries - Australia, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, France, Ghana, Greece, Nigeria, Paraguay, Serbia, South Africa and Uruguay - have signed an appeal committing them to use the power and outreach of football to create an HIV-free generation.
On the Namibian sport front, the Namibian Football Association Galz & Goals youth team left for South Africa to compete in the two-week-long international Hessequa Cup tournament.
The team will be sharing their message of "girls making smart choices for a healthy life".
The squad of 20 under-15 girls will take part in Kicking AIDS Out Activities, which get the girls talking and discussing about life skills and behaviours that could put them at risk of contracting HIV.
The Galz & Goals initiative is a partnership between the NFA and SCORE Namibia with support from Unicef. This innovative initiative has been short-listed for a prestigious International Beyond Sport Award at the 2010 Beyond Sport Summit in Chicago this September.
We know that virtually eliminating mother-to-child HIV transmission is possible. In high-income countries we have seen transmission rates fall from 25 per cent to between one per cent and five per cent in recent years as HIV testing of pregnant women, the use of antiretroviral drugs during and after delivery, and contraception have become widely available. These successes are now being replicated in countries such as Botswana, Namibia and Swaziland.
But more needs to be done. In most of Africa, only 45 per cent of HIV-positive pregnant women have access to antiretroviral drugs to prevent HIV transmission to their newborns, and just 28 per cent of pregnant women are tested for HIV. In Namibia, over 1 500 infants are born with HIV each year. In many African countries, AIDS has become the leading cause of death among infants and young children.
Progress is being seen in Namibia and South Africa, the World Cup's host country. The South African government has shown bold leadership on AIDS in recent months with the launch of a nationwide HIV testing and treatment campaign that urges South Africans to get tested for HIV.
By 2011, the campaign aims to provide free and routine HIV counselling and testing to 15 million people, up from 2,5 million in 2009 - a six-fold increase in just two years. And some 1,5 million people will receive antiretroviral therapy by June 2011, up from about one million in 2009.
Currently, in Namibia 60 per cent of HIV-positive pregnant women have access to antiretroviral drugs. Among the priority biomedical interventions included in the Namibia National Strategic Framework for HIV and AIDS 2010/11-2015/16, the objective of PMTCT is to ensure adequate and comprehensive provision of quality PMTCT services to all women of reproductive age.
As more mothers learn their HIV status and have increased access to antiretroviral therapy and contraception, HIV transmission rates are expected to drop considerably. With more effective combinations of antiretroviral drugs as well as offering a comprehensive PMTCT package, South Africa and Namibia could move towards the virtual elimination of mother-to-child transmission.
If South Africa, the country with the largest number of people living with HIV, can break the trajectory of the AIDS epidemic, there is hope for other countries to join in championing the AIDS response.
As the football fever spreads across the globe, let's do everything we can to stop HIV's spread. We have no excuse.